Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

I've got secret mission. It’s actually my second assignment of this type and the last one was most definitely a secret. We’ll call him Man A. He was my employer for the first operation. He was visiting my Husband and had, to his chagrin, been told by his Significant Other to come home with a ‘designer bag.’

I was having a beer with them in the night market when the mission came up. He hadn’t bothered to find out what she wanted and felt anything would do (Oh no, Man A, that is most certainly NOT the case). Husband (mine), cynical well trained as he is, laughed out loud at his disillusioned colleague. Trying to squeeze more information out of him than, ‘something black and designery’ I was given a woefully inadequate budget. Cue Husband (mine) laughing out loud again.

I was eventually dispatched into the market with a vague brief (honestly, anything I got would be better than that half witted, beer drinking man) and a more realistic budget. All seemed to be well. Bag was procured and I never heard anything else: Mission accomplished, I believe. Back at the beer drinking, I did relentlessly tease Man A that I’d hidden a little note inside telling his Significant Other that I, and not half wit man, had purchased the bag. I can guarantee that Man A spent half the night searching through the pockets of our purchase to ensure that Significant Other never knew I was involved.

So cue second mission. This one arose last Saturday with new colleagues in town and entails the procurement of my favourite ‘make’. Man B seemed happy enough for me to do the shopping. I was happy with the mission: emails were dispatched home regarding designs and colours (I don’t know if my part in the shopping is being discussed) and I’ve spent some of the weekend compiling a dossier…Man B has a hold on reality and has put forward a good budget. Tomorrow I make the hit.

So my question is this: if your Significant Other is on business somewhere famous for certain products and you really wanted him to come home with something for you, how would you feel about the situation? Would you mind him getting an ‘expert’ involved? Or would you rather he did the choosing and you risk getting something horrible?